Deborah Pritchard: Learning to trust in your own musical style

Music comes from a deeply personal place and has the potential to communicate in ways that words can’t, engaging with what it means to be human and finding a more spiritual narrative. There are many advantages to having your own musical style: for me, it helps my voice have greater expression and meaning.

We arrive at our own musical style in different ways. My language has developed as a result of having synaesthesia - a neurological condition that means I perceive sound as colour. I experience synaesthesia through the relationship between colour and intervals: some intervals are warm whilst some are cold, with varying colours. This colouristic approach has led me to create numerous pieces in response to visual artworks, including my violin concerto Wall of Water after the paintings by the contemporary artist Maggi Hambling. Or my solo violin piece Inside Colour that responds to the colours of the aurora, as seen from space.

The natural result of this synergy is that my musical style uses interval control to generate harmonic tension and release, not only as a literal representation of colour but also as functional parameter of my musical language. This is augmented further by awareness of light and darkness, register, timbre, texture and rhythmic intensity. Whilst not all my work is interdisciplinary, I'm aware that this visual way of thinking directly affects my overall approach as a composer.

I also paint music, having created a series of 'music maps' for the London Sinfonietta alongside more expressive visualisations of my own work. These images are created after the music has been fully noted, engaging with synaesthesia to show the trajectory of colour. I also construct graphic scores which should be fully interpreted.

My advice to others in search of their own musical style is to let your compositional practice emerge organically from what inspires you, so it develops with authenticity. Listen to as much as possible from all historical periods and always refer back to the score to fully understand the work. Immerse yourself in live concerts and, if you play an instrument, perform, improvise and create. By contextualising your work you will start to strengthen your own creative goals.

It's also helpful to think about what is functional in your musical language? What methods and approaches facilitate these principles? What aspects of your technique drive your form? Set yourself short studies focussing on varying musical parameters, sketch ideas and create your own systems. Consider what your music means to you: does it convey something beyond the notes (in a programmatic sense) or is your approach more autonomous, simply finding beauty in the musical fabric of composition.

To some composers a distinctive style has always been embedded in their language, for others, time is needed for it to emerge. Let yourself progress at your own pace: everybody’s path is different and we all develop at different rates. And be encouraged that you already have a unique voice that just needs time to flourish.

My musical style inevitably feeds into all my projects, and this is certainly the case for Music@Malling’s upcoming Six Brandenburg: Six Commissions. For this project, each composer was asked to write a companion piece to one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. My new work, Illumination, is a response to the Concerto No. 3 in G Major. Interval control, light, darkness, use of colour and timbre and register pervade the score. And whilst the starting point was the Bach (specifically a rhythmic cell from the concerto) my own style and syntax govern the sound world. The title Illumination conveys the bright, luminous resonance of the music and the idea of illuminating the Bach, like a colourful manuscript.

Music@Malling’s springtime programme Six Brandenburg: Six Commissions will take place across three concerts at 12pm, 2.30pm and 4.30pm on Saturday 23 April. For the event, six world premieres will take place in one day at St. Mary’s Abbey in West Malling. Find out more here.